The Scottish Reformation | Page 5

the General Assembly expressed its sense of the value of the distinguished services which he had rendered to the Church in this department of her work in the following terms: "The Assembly are satisfied that the present prosperity of the Jewish Mission, and the remarkable progress which it has made, has been mainly owing to the great labour, the learning, enthusiasm, and warm and intelligent Christian interest which Dr Mitchell has devoted during these years to the cause of Jewish conversion in connection with the Church of Scotland." After his retirement from the Convenership he but seldom attended the meetings of the Committee, for the reason, as he was once heard to say, that he did not wish to appear to hamper his successors; but he never ceased to take a deep interest in the Mission, and none rejoiced more than he in its growing prosperity.
While the Professor still occupied the Hebrew Chair, he had shown a special aptitude for another branch of learning, in which he was yet to make a reputation for himself in the Churches not only of Britain but of America. In 1866 he published a lecture, primarily addressed to his students, on 'The Westminster Confession of Faith: A Contribution to the Study of its Historical Relations and to the Defence of its Teaching,' which, as a reply to views then current in certain quarters, attracted no little notice at the time of its publication, and which is not only of special interest as illustrating his theological standpoint, and the calm and temperate, yet earnest and vigorous, manner in which he could defend it, but is of permanent value as a contribution to the literature of the subject with which it deals. In the following year he published 'The Wedderburns and their Work, or the Sacred Poetry of the Scottish Reformation in its Relation to that of Germany'--a subject which was treated by him much more fully in one of his most recent works.
The Professor was known to possess a most extensive and accurate knowledge of Church History in general, and of Scottish Church History in particular; and when in 1868 he was called to occupy the Chair of Ecclesiastical History in St Mary's College, the appointment was hailed with satisfaction alike by the University and the Church. With an absorbing interest in his subject, and with the true instinct of the historian, he was most painstaking in ascertaining historical facts, never reaching his conclusions but as the result of patient and careful investigation; and those who knew him intimately can tell how little he grudged the trouble of a journey to Edinburgh or London, or even of an occasional excursion to the Continent, in order to prosecute his researches in libraries there with the view of verifying a statement, or of obtaining indubitable evidence on some controverted point. Besides those who had the privilege of listening to his prelections from the professorial chair, there are many in the Churches on both sides of the Atlantic who have profited by his great erudition; and his published writings, which all bear the impress of a master-hand, will always be reckoned standard works in Ecclesiastical History.
It is no part of the purpose of this notice to describe his various works in detail, but the mere enumeration of them will show what a life of unremitting study he lived. Besides those already referred to, he edited, along with the late Dr Struthers, in 1874, 'The Minutes of the Westminster Assembly from November 1644 to March 1649,' to which is prefixed an elaborate Historical Introduction written by himself; in 1882 he wrote a 'Historical Notice of Archbishop Hamilton's Catechism' (first printed at St Andrews in 1551), prefixed to Paterson's black-letter reprint of the same; in 1883 he published his Baird Lecture, 'The Westminster Assembly: Its History and Standards'; in 1886 he published 'The Catechisms of the Second Reformation'; in 1888 he edited, for the Scottish Text Society, 'The Richt Vay to the Kingdome of Heuine,' by John Gau, the earliest known prose-treatise in the Scottish dialect setting forth the doctrines of the Reformers; and in 1897, for the same Society, 'The Gude and Godlie Ballads,' reprinted from the edition of 1567, with a full and most interesting Introduction. For the Scottish History Society he also edited in 1892 and 1896, along with the writer of this sketch, two volumes of 'The Records of the Commissions of the General Assembly,' covering the period 1646-1650, from the original manuscript in the Assembly library, with an introduction, notes, and appendices by himself. To these must be added the present volume of the Baird Lecture, 'The Scottish Reformation.'
The Baird Lecture on the Westminster Assembly was received with great favour in America as well as in this country, and a new edition of it was